These are just my opinions. I cannot promise that I will be perfect, but I can promise that I will seek to understand and illuminate whatever moves that the Giants make (my obsession and compulsion). I will share my love of baseball and my passion for the Giants. And I will try to teach, best that I can. Often, I tackle the prevailing mood among Giants fans and see if that is a correct stance, good or bad.

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Friday, May 11, 2007

Congrats to Lincecum on Win #1 - First of Many

Just had to post a congrats to Tim Lincecum on his first major league win, the first of many. He battled his way through this one, giving up an early run due to a walk he should not have given up to that batter, then a wild pitch putting the runner in scoring position and then scoring on a dribbler up the middle, then another much later and a final third in the 6th. Plus he did it in Colorado, where breaking pitches go to die and wind up as hits off of bats, and he needs his breaking pitches to pitch well, as any good pitcher needs, but he was able to keep the damage down.

Meanwhile his team could not even get a hit for six innings, until finally scoring a couple of runs in the 7th, to make it 3-2 Rockies. Then 2 in the 8th to take the first lead ever in the majors for Lincecum. Then 4 in the 9th to secure the win (or as secure as a 5 run lead in Coors ever is).

He pitched 7 innings, throwing 112 pitches, 75 of them for strikes (67% strikes, which is good), giving up 7 hits, 1 walk, 1 HR, 3 runs, 2 ER, and getting 6 strikeouts, which was good for a 5 PQS Dominating start, and he got the win. Taschner got another hold, but Sanchez had another shaky outing and had to be saved by Benitez in the 9th, though not officially.

The team was filled with players from Fresno last year, who all contributed. Fred Lewis led off and went 1-4 with a walk, scoring 2 runs and driving in 2 keys insurance runs in the ninth. He started the rally in the 8th by working for a walk after starting out 0-2 in the count, before scoring the tying run. Dan Ortmeier got his first start after being called up yesterday, going 2 for 4, with 1 run scored, which was in the 9th, driven in by Lewis. Even Frandsen chipped in, he was brought in as a pinch-hitter and singled in the 9th and drove in the 7th run. Taschner came in relief of Chulk in the 8th after the Giants had taken a 4-3 lead and Chulk had given up a hit to the first batter he faced, giving up a double to Matt Holliday, so there's not a lot of shame in that. Taschner faced the middle of the lineup and got Helton, a tough out, to fly out to left, the Atkins pinch-hit and lined out to third, then Jack closed out the inning by getting Hawpe to ground out to firstbase.

Great game overall for almost all involved for the Giants, as everyone in the lineup got on base at least once, and they all either scored a run or drove in a run or both, except for Bonds, who could only manage a walk. Despite being no-hit for six innings, the Giants bunched 11 hits into the final three frames to turn a tough luck loss for Lincecum into a tough luck loss for Josh Fogg and a win for Lincecum. Randy Winn, who didn't start, probably to help his back, came in ostensibly for defensive purposes in the 8th but the delivered a hit to extend to a 12 game hitting streak plus score a run.

Great also because it stopped a three game losing streak. Thus it was Lincecum's first win to stop a winning streak as well. Again, congrats to Tim Lincecum on his first major league win, which should be the first of many for him.

And So the Phenom Can Lead the Way to the Promise Land

No pressure :^) but if he can continue to pitch this well, he can provide a lift to the team equivalent to when the Marlins were losing and then Dontrelle Willis joined their team and gave them a jolt of his D-Train energy, which they rode all the way to the World Series championship. With a rotation of Zito, Cain, Morris, Lowry and Lincecum, losing streaks should be rather short if they pitch to their capabilities, but winning streaks could be long, as it was when we ran off a 10 game win streak. And adding Ortiz to the bullpen should strengthen it, particularly if Chulk is the one replaced, as he has not been doing that well.

And I think today's game gave a glimpse of what the offense can do when they have some offense coming from the CF and SS, which has been missing for much of this season until recently, when Vizquel started hitting after being switched to the bottom of the order. We don't need a great offense to do well with our pitching staff. As I showed in another post, the team could be as bad as it was last season and still win a lot of games. But if they can be improved, as I think they can be with the additions of Roberts, Aurilia/Klesko (1B) , and Molina, then we should win the division.

I wanted to note this great quote from Jack Taschner (link: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/gameday_recap.jsp?ymd=20070511&content_id=1959406&vkey=recap&fext=.jsp&c_id=sf ):

"I said, 'Hey, after you go on to win 299 more of these, then you can remember that first win and the obscure lefty who kept your win in line,'" Taschner said.

I thought that was great, I broke out laughing!

Hmmm, he's 22, if he pitches another 18 years, he would need to win 17 per year to reach 300 (11 in last season). Shows how hard it is going to be for any pitcher today to win 300 without going past age 40, as there is but a handful of pitchers who win 17 in a season, let alone continually over an 18 year period.

I, Me, Mine

Wow, this was easy and amazingly free. I am a big Giants fan and I hope to use my experience in business (MBA) and analytics (nearly 25 years) to bring up interesting facts to other Giants fans so that we may better understand the team's chances for success (or not) and hopefully share their insights with me. Please read my "OGC's Business Plan" link to better understand what my philosophy is for building a successful MLB team.
I want to teach and share my love of baseball and, in particular, my love for the San Francisco Giants. I will believe to my dying days that Bobby Bonds should be in Baseball’s Hall of Fame for being one of the few to bring the combination of power and speed to the game.
Why a blog? I love technology and society and just wanted to participate in this trend to see what it felt like. Plus I have a lot of questions I would like answered about the Giants and since I don't see anyone else tackling them, I've taken it upon myself to do it. Not that I'm that special, but just that I'm willing to put in the time to investigate them.